Honor The Dead

The Mall Is For Reflection, Not Souvenir Shopping

August 20, 1997

A tourist from California who bought a T-shirt from one of six souvenir stands between the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial told a reporter this week that buying and selling T-shirts on the Mall in Washington, D.C., is no different from buying and selling T-shirts at a drag strip. Obviously the visitor had not gotten much from his visit. Perhaps it was the fault of all those tacky booths lining the Mall and interfering with both the beauty and serenity that is appropriate when one wants to remember the dead.

Now a federal court has said that the National Park Service has the right to remove these vendors from the scene. This seems so obvious that one has to wonder why the park service ever allowed the first vendor to set up shop and why it took two years of court hearings and appeals to get a definitive decision.

The situation was complicated by the claim of the T-shirt vendors that they had a First Amendment right to express their opinions on the T-shirts that they sold. This was a claim that the courts, rightfully, took seriously and gave full consideration.

But in the end, the decision doesn't abrogate the vendors' right to free speech. Certainly the vendors are free to hold any political opinion they please and to express it on T-shirts or in other ways. But their argument that they must be allowed to sell the T-shirts on the Mall to make money to finance their political activity goes beyond the constitutional guarantee of free speech.

The vendors, who can sell their wares on city streets, can also secure permits to sell selected items on the Mall, and that is unfortunate. The Mall is a national treasure, a place where we go to honor the best in our history. A visit should be a meaningful experience; no one should compare it to going to a drag strip.